The title above might seem a bit obtuse to some since it's clear to most progressives that the GOP is already on the corporate dole and doesn't need any more funding. However, the funds in question are the costs to the taxpayer that result from GOP behavior and policies, and it strikes me that the constantly mounting bill is beginning to get out of hand. The one-time home of fiscal conservatives, the GOP has become the home of wasteful spenders who, while spouting simplistic economic platitudes intended to enhance an image of financial rectitude, have been pissing away public funds with abandon.
The GOP costs the taxpayer in two ways, the most prominent of which is simply the result of ill-considered, ideologically-driven policies that ignore the facts of real life (although, for Republicans, the line between true policy and political pandering always seems a little fuzzy). Consider the following examples:
--Austerity: The GOP has embraced an policy of economic austerity that focuses on cutting taxes and public spending; the near-religious fervor of the GOP commitment to austerity made the realization of the poison-pill budget sequester that took effect earlier all but inevitable - as President Obama should have realized would be the case. Last quarter GDP was lower than estimated and is predicted to fall at an even greater rate beginning mid year as the effects of sequestration intensify. This economic slow-down mirrors the effects of austerity in Europe where draconian spending cuts have forced many countries back into recession. Even though the most prominent academic justification for austerians has been seriously discredited and our real-life experience tells us the policy is a disaster, the GOP continues to call for spending and tax cuts as almost their sole contribution to governing.
--Climate denialism: Climate deniers almost always claim that curbing carbon emissions would be too costly and would damage the economy. Sceptical Science discusses recent studies that demonstrate that such arguments do not account for the costs of the damage that will result from climate change, and which will quickly outweigh the costs of policies aimed at changing its trajectory. The post notes that even a conservative economist like William Nordhaus believes that delaying action could, over the next half-century, cost as much as $4.1 trillion - and his estimates are decidedly lower than those of other economists.
--Gun violence. While the GOP does the bidding of the NRA and panders to gun-nut conspiracy theorists by resisting even the most benign and common-sense types of gun regulation, gun violence, much of it preventable, costs the US economy $12 billion annually.
The other way that the GOP wastes taxpayers funds are the costs incurred by their determination to do their political party work while they're supposed to be doing the job of governing that they were elected to do. Examples are plentiful:
--Obamacare: Not only would repealing Obamacare as a policy act (see examples above) add, according to the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), $109 billion to the deficit, the costs incurred by the House of Representatives' thirty-seven purely symbolic votes to repeal Obamacare have been estimated to exceed $48 million.
--Ongoing GOP scandalmania: The efforts in the GOP-run House of Representatives to manufacture scandals out of whole cloth or by grossly exaggerating the significance and scope of actual misdeeds will probably go on all summer, in spite of the fact that House hearings to date have failed to turn up much of anything that meets the smell test for a real scandal. If it takes $24 million dollars to run the House for a week, as the Congressional Research Office asserted when it estimated the price tag for the House Obamacare votes, you can assume that a considerable portion of that sum will be wasted each week over a period of many, many weeks this summer on hearings related to the non-scandals the GOP has managed to dredge up. This money is essentially being used to finance GOP efforts to whip up the electorate prior to 2014 and 2016.
At the state level, political posturing by the GOP has also resulted in serious economic costs despite the fact that states budgets are, in the wake of the recession, often severely strained. There are horror stories in just about every state where the legislature is controlled by Republicans. A few examples:
Restrictive Photo Voter ID laws: Such laws, designed to suppress Democratic votes, end up costing taxpayers a bundle as well as violating fundamental precepts of democracy - all in order to solve a problem that does not exist. There are a number of costs in addition to those resulting from the legal obligation of the state to supply such ID to individuals who currently lack it; a Brennan Center study of potential costs concludes that:
Although the costs will vary from state to state, they will likely run into the millions of dollars per state per year and dramatically increase the cost of administering elections. Even if a state incurs these costs, its photo ID requirements may still be vulnerable to successful constitutional challenges; and a state that does not allocate sufficient funds to cover these costs will likely see its law struck down. States should therefore consider whether, in these difficult budgetary times, it is worth the dent in their budgets to introduce a new and controversial election procedure that has not been shown to improve election security.
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Nullification laws: The red state fad
du jour seems to be to pass
"nullification" laws that direct officials of the particular state in question not to enforce whichever federal law that local GOPers are most exercised about (part of the process is, of course, spreading so much misinformation that there's always something that will get the barn-burners going). My own state, Missouri, recently passed an
astoundingly stupid bill that purports to block implementation of not only any new gun-control legislation, but gun-control laws passed as far back as the 1930s. Should my governor fail to veto it, you can be sure that the state taxpayers will be in hock for millions of dollars to try to defend a patently unconstitutional law. Can anyone say wasteful spending?
--Drug testing for welfare recipients: My own state recently failed to pass a law that proposed to tie welfare to negative drug tests, but the legislation will probably be back. It has been proposed in many red states and has passed in a few. The rationale reflects the belief in a particularly ugly, often racist, stereotype about the average welfare recipient that does not hold true often enough to justify the effort - and since the state pays for the drug tests, it ends up footing a big bill for little or no return on the investment. For instance, Florida's fling with testing of potential welfare recipients for drugs found that only 2.6% of the individuals tested during the time that the law was in effect had positive results, resulting in a net loss to taxpayers of $45,780, not counting administrative costs, "the attorneys and court fees and the thousands of hours of staff time it took to implement this policy."
There are lots more examples at both state and national level of the ways that the GOP is costing us money. They are, of course, hurting us in far more serious ways than the economic damage that are inflicting on us. Their policies are causing pain and suffering that diminishes us all morally as long as it is allowed to persist. However, it is also important to recognize that we pay out of our pocketbooks and in terms of our long-term economic well-being when we allow rightwing silliness to be taken seriously.